User blog:AnnikaDoll/Some concerns on page content (and ideas to fill them!)
I've seen lots of new pages and characters on the wiki these past few months, and that's totally great! I'm glad there's activity and there's some really cute and inventive ideas from everyone for this fandom (I especially like seeing the new chapters, stories, or bits of writing that pop up! ^^) But I have a bit of a minor nitpick I wanted to address really isn't a drastic community issue, but just something minor I wanted to bring into consideration: I do want to ask if maybe the users who are or have been active in the past several months would consider waiting to post a character page until you have a good amount of content for it? A few small paragraphs, subsections, or images perhaps? We have some pages that are just info boxes or like a few sentences or tiny paragraphs of text and sometimes they dont get touched for a little while, and by the time other users post new pages, their content on the activity page is pushed down by quite a few edits being made over time to the previous pages. (I honestly feel really ''bad when I post a full page then suddenly have to start editing my pages with info or to fix mistakes because I feel like I'm actually spamming the wiki myself, even if its just 3 or 4 tweaks, haha) If you post a page that isn't super full of information because you want to edit it later ''with ''information, then maybe instead of posting a placeholder page, you could keep it in a word document then edit the sections you want and how you might want them to look there, then transfer that to a new page you want to create so things dont look so bare! Just because I want to keep things organized is all, and give other's pages a chance to shine when they are created. Ive even seen pages pop up from people who really dont post often and they get kind of swept under other activity D,: Editing your pages is fine and making new ones is fine! I'm not saying dont do that at all, lol. But maybe make pages only after a little more content is thought out for it so the pages dont seem so bare and there isnt as much activity clutter? again it isnt such a drastic issue since the activity feed isnt purely edits or something, but it is still a good number of small pages and constant edits burying other users' pages I personally like to type stuff out beforehand since I like to have more content on my pages (except in some like really old pages of mine, or the more recent one-off page I have that is intended to be more design-oriented than detail-oriented). Then, when I think I've got enough information for a page, I make it! And if I have several characters who would have really empty pages because there isn't too much to be said about them, I combine them like i do with my character pages for some of my stories. You can do things any way you are comfortable, but do see if it's possible to make stronger or more detailed pages ahead of time so that you have more to present to your audience! Ways to Fill pages (This can honestly apply to characters you create in general, but I'm still giving some thoughts an advice relevant to this wiki, lol) If you're not sure what sorts of things to fill a character's page/description with beyond statistics, try any of these that would require, or could be turned into a few sentences of description!: *Relationship with their teammates *General information about their powers (or their contributions to the team If they're human and dont have powers] *Trivia! that aspects of your character may reference or what sorts of inspirations you drew from! *Description of their history or past events in their lives that have shaped who they are *Home/school/work life *Strengths/weaknesses *Likes and dislikes *Interests and hobbies *Fighting style they fight *How they feel about things/perceptions as being a Mew or being part of a team or something they are trying to change If you're someone who ends up having trouble thinking of what to write about an aspect of a character beyond one or two sentences (and trust me, I've been there), think of what you can say about that sentence--what can you build upon what you already have? ''"___ lives with her family and likes to garden" is brief, but what does the character do with their family? How do they act around them? what do they think of them? Why do they like to garden? By just adding some details about the family and linking her interactions with them to gardening, we can make the sentence a minor paragraph that explains her relationship with her family and that they are the cause of her interest in gardening. And furthermore, we can show that it's important enough for her that she continues to do it now: (Apologies for bad writing lol): "_____ lives with her two younger brothers and parents in a small house in Kyoto. Her mother likes to garden and always had _____ help tend to her beautiful flowers of all colors when she was growing up. ____ would always give plucked flowers to her father by leaving them as presents on his desk to show that she cared about him despite how busy he was, and typically he would respond by leaving another picked flower on her pillow that she'd wake up to every morning after he'd already left for work. While _____ liked the peace of the garden with her mother, she also had to spend a lot of time taking care of her two chaotic younger brothers, both of which to this day still like to tease and bother her. But despite the trouble they cause, _____ still very much cares for her siblings and will try to get them into the garden with her and their mother so that they can spend time together without being rowdy. Even while busy with being a Mew Mew and working at the cafe, ______ always makes time to help out in the garden with her mother when she can." '' By building on what you have already said and thinking more in detail, you can extend the sentence quite a bit! You don't have to make some fancy story, but even just more about who is in her family could extend the description. '' You can also research the sorts of things people might post alongside character descriptions so you can figure out what else you can add to really make your characters "pop" and feel even more unique and alive! While your pages dont need to be exceptionally long by any means, if you enjoy making new characters then you'd want to know as much about them as possible and relay that to an audience! And if you especially like to write (since I have seen a good number of users that are actually interested in it!) it is a fun challenge and good practice, even for characters that are by themselves and not part of any story. --------------------------- Again, it's not a big deal but it'd be cool to see fuller pages and have other users get the chance to showcase their pages too :D (Sorry for rambling haha) Category:Blog posts